In an effort to reduce as much as possible the chance of a fire or other burning within a conventional laundry dryer due to, e.g., the ignition of lint and/or debris, manufacturers adhere to one or more standards directed to fire suppression and/or concealment within laundry dryers. Such standards are becoming more and more restrictive and thus require appliance manufacturers to design laundry dryers so as to be able to pass the rigorous tests imposed by the standards in order to obtain the necessary safety certifications to sell their products as compliant with the corresponding standard. Thus, when designing and/or manufacturing laundry dryers, manufacturers may include fire suppression and/or concealment systems in order to meet the rigors of one or more safety standards such that their appliance may ultimately be certified by the standard-setting body and thus sold in the corresponding market.
As an example of a mandatory standard in the U.S. market, Underwriters Laboratories (“UL”) maintains the UL 2158 standard, which, among other features, tests an electric dryer's ability to suppress and/or conceal an internal fire under both static (e.g., no drum rotating and no air being moved through the dryer's ventilation system) and dynamic (e.g., drum is rotating and air is being moved through the dryer's ventilation system) testing conditions. In order to meet the UL 2158 standard, a dryer must prevent an internal fire from spreading to a sheet draped over the appliance during testing under both conditions. If a dryer passes such a test (i.e., if the fire does not spread to the sheet draped over the dryer), the dryer may be marked and sold with the UL seal of approval.
Accordingly, some dryers include fire-resistant shielding in an effort to combat or control any internal fires which may ultimately result due to, e.g., heated lint and/or debris which has collected within a dryer during continued use of the dryer. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,900,372, entitled “Clothes Dryer with Louvre Cover,” describes a laundry dryer with louvre cover brackets which allow ambient air to enter a cabinet of the laundry dryer but which help to contain a fire within the cabinet should one ultimately ignite. However, such louvre cover brackets do not shield any internal components of the dryer from the fire within the cabinet, but rather at best seek to contain the fire within the cabinet. Thus, the louvre brackets may be generally ineffective in preventing the fire from propagating throughout the cabinet. Further, a laundry dryer may need to be specially manufactured in order to employ such brackets, and thus these louvre brackets may be generally inapplicable to existing dryers and/or dryer designs.
In another example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,360,323, entitled “Top Firewall Cover Assembly for Laundry Dryer,” describes a laundry dryer with a fire plate provided between a top cover and side plates of the laundry dryer. The fire plate helps prevent the spread of a fire taking place in the cabinet to the outside of the cabinet. Again, because the fire plate does not shield any internal components of the laundry dryer, this fire plate may be generally ineffective in preventing the fire from propagating throughout the cabinet. This may be particularly problematic when the fire ignites in the basement of the cabinet, because the fire plate is provided at a top of the laundry dryer, just beneath a top cover.
In yet another example, German Patent Application Publication No. DE102012014230, entitled (as translated) “Laundry Drying Apparatus Having Floor Plate that is Arranged Above Understructure Provided with Non-Flammable Plastic Support Portion so as to Separate Covered Region of Understructure Spatially from Remaining Inner Space,” describes a laundry dryer with a floor plate which covers a heat exchanger provided in the basement of the laundry dryer in an attempt to prevent a fire within the laundry dryer from spreading to the plastic heat exchanger. However, the relatively thin floor plate may be prone to deforming or collapsing should the underlying structure (e.g., the basement) deform or melt in the presence of high temperatures caused by a fire or other burning within the laundry dryer. Further, the floor plate fails to cover many internal components of the laundry dryer, such as, e.g., rollers, water pipes, etc., which may ultimately ignite and thus propagate a fire or other burning within the laundry dryer.
Accordingly, there remains a need for further improving fire-resistant shielding for a laundry dryer in a relatively inexpensive way, which is effective in controlling a fire or burning igniting internal components of the laundry dryer, and/or which can be readily used in existing dryer systems and/or dryer designs.